Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station is a thermal nuclear power plant located in Lower Alloways Creek Township, in Salem County, New Jersey, United States, on the same site on Artificial Island as the two-unit Salem Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is owned and operated by PSEG Nuclear LLC. It has one unit (one reactor), a boiling water reactor (BWR) manufactured by GE.[2] The complex was designed for two units, but the second unit was cancelled in 1981. It has a generating capacity of 1,268 MWe. The plant came online on July 25, 1986, licensed to operate until 2026.
In 2009, PSEG applied for a 20-year license renewal,[3]
which it received in 2011 to operate until 2046.[4] With its combined output of 3,572 megawatts, the Salem-Hope Creek complex is the largest nuclear generating facility in the Eastern United States and the second largest nationwide, after the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona.
Hope Creek is one of three licensed nuclear power reactors in New Jersey. The others are the two units at the adjacent Salem plant.[5] As of January 1, 2005, New Jersey ranked 10th among the 31 states with nuclear capacity for total MWe generated. In 2021, nuclear plants generated 45% of the electricity in the state.[6]
In 2019, New Jersey began providing the state's nuclear plants Zero-Emission Certificates worth $300 million a year to keep them in service. The subsidy was ended in 2024, effective June 1, 2025, as the Inflation Reduction Act provides alternative tax credits to support clean energy.[7]
Plant features
Hope Creek is a boiling water reactor (BWR) unlike its neighbors at the nearby Salem Nuclear Plant which are pressurized water reactors (PWR).
Hope Creek's reactor is used to produce electricity. The plant's huge natural-draft cooling tower can be seen from many miles away in both Delaware and New Jersey and as far west as Elk Neck Peninsula in Maryland. The cooling tower can be seen from the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the bridges over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. This cooling tower serves only Hope Creek's single reactor. The neighboring Salem units utilize once-through cooling with no cooling tower.
A unique feature of Hope Creek is its cylindrical reactor building complete with a dome which makes it appear similar to a pressurized water reactor containment building which is not typical of boiling water reactors. This similarity is limited to appearance. Like other BWRs, the actual containment vessel for the reactor is a separate drywell/torus structure enclosed within the reactor building, but structurally separate. The outer reactor building serves as secondary containment and houses many of the reactor's safety systems.
Surrounding population
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.[8]
The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Hope Creek was 53,811, an increase of 53.3 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 5,523,010, an increase of 7.5 percent since 2000.
Generation (MWh) of Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station[10]
Year
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Annual (Total)
2001
788,170
718,046
787,980
743,123
538,212
747,120
768,484
779,626
748,126
196,043
616,558
620,533
8,051,021
2002
806,577
717,057
728,675
773,353
630,110
561,751
781,291
749,505
737,734
776,241
771,830
804,666
9,838,790
2003
791,347
718,805
409,815
352,710
389,754
743,334
785,188
781,856
480,493
641,234
761,682
404,364
7,260,582
2004
617,530
715,302
495,484
228,783
785,519
724,022
770,189
740,863
723,027
240,440
-6,973
-6,825
5,027,361
2005
24,699
686,602
672,283
513,827
813,305
487,381
777,015
703,030
629,750
785,704
764,670
814,446
7,672,712
2006
803,113
727,993
809,364
140,144
595,443
770,419
782,941
767,228
762,976
810,519
789,597
815,426
8,375,163
2007
671,526
721,771
813,052
783,583
730,587
737,500
778,000
773,888
729,209
257,055
308,886
799,486
8,104,543
2008
757,807
743,262
800,446
770,955
799,700
832,578
862,659
871,601
860,030
902,398
869,708
921,243
10,091,387
2009
855,022
825,367
911,077
263,684
679,837
862,526
885,863
878,842
853,536
891,235
879,025
914,282
10,300,296
2010
765,423
809,049
911,765
877,368
895,324
822,055
831,709
844,884
838,150
408,089
510,716
924,010
10,238,542
2011
919,626
831,385
808,303
879,215
892,573
858,932
871,746
881,276
855,497
899,898
874,339
902,101
10,374,891
2012
878,316
848,841
791,251
340,533
594,656
853,737
871,018
876,844
829,707
878,175
883,671
904,492
10,251,241
2013
914,205
827,610
907,077
874,360
886,881
668,132
837,103
854,923
823,981
287,290
558,600
630,224
9,070,386
2014
919,839
825,825
914,414
847,519
868,463
863,348
886,510
888,798
670,116
900,108
882,693
906,183
10,274,816
2015
917,393
829,649
913,179
270,902
490,415
856,500
886,966
888,369
783,639
838,786
831,313
902,246
9,409,357
2016
921,225
856,236
902,298
879,864
900,264
792,864
874,325
854,733
845,312
368,909
485,027
922,386
10,603,443
2017
922,838
803,073
919,471
880,453
906,404
858,883
884,885
888,186
862,083
899,012
883,631
918,414
10,527,333
2018
907,483
820,511
891,748
309,780
512,548
838,328
863,982
877,862
837,917
899,675
883,910
902,940
10,346,684
2019
917,439
827,695
799,826
789,936
889,877
845,495
825,291
707,050
665,519
306,391
239,821
912,606
8,726,946
2020
917,551
847,706
900,179
874,618
901,899
853,131
876,312
876,467
861,334
895,442
875,086
912,972
10,492,697
2021
908,276
776,285
748,728
432,368
316,686
729,351
742,366
883,171
854,256
896,553
881,934
910,083
9,080,057
2022
914,263
828,822
904,471
872,788
893,694
682,467
861,953
828,951
661,902
9,968
824,274
915,123
9,198,676
2023
912,648
819,705
907,429
850,217
711,323
856,205
853,821
863,123
838,514
767,233
872,162
686,043
9,938,423
2024
817,057
823,971
778,153
43,437
421,868
815,639
878,287
881,264
836,419
--
Seismic risk
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Hope Creek was 1 in 357,143, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[11][12]